Reviews
- Review by Bill Rankin of The Edmonton Journal
- Letter from Carl Henrik Svenstedt
- Radio review by Teresa Stolarskyj, interviewed by Paulette Demchuk MacQuarrie for Nash Holos (Ukrainian radio)
- Review by Marguerite Pigott of the Toronto International Film Festival
- Review by Anrij Makuch of The New Pathway
- Review by Jason Whyte of efilmcritic.com
- Review by Kevin Potvin of the Vancouver Republic
- From an article on Vancouver films going to TIFF by Glen Schaefer of the Vancouver Province
- Film Description, The Vancouver International Film Festival, program
- Review by S. James Wegg of the Hamilton View
- Review by Jessica Smith of the University of Victoria's Independent Newspaper, The Martlet
Review by Bill Rankin of The Edmonton Journal
Acts of Imagination (3 Stars) – Carolyn Combs' Acts of Imagination is more than an earnest little Canadian film exploring the immigrant experience, although it is that. Combs uses Michael Springate's ambitious script to magnify the main characters' uniqueness before anything else, a mainstay of good storytelling. The interlaced scenes of domestic tension between a brother and sister from Ukraine who live on Vancouver's east side and the fantasy world of the sister who is tortured by the mystery of her mother's death and father's disappearance could have invited cinematic gimmicks. Combs resists. She uses just enough technique to make the movement from Katya's imagination to the siblings' daily economic and emotional struggles narratively clear and interesting.
Stephanie Hayes plays Katya as almost autistic, with unexpected glimmers of totally practical awareness. Her brother, Jaroslaw, played by Billy Marchenski, bears the psychological burden of seeing that he and his sister simply survive. Unemployed, the lover to a single-parent Korean immigrant (Maki Nagisa) who wants him to leave Katya for the security of her paycheque and bed, Jaroslaw's dilemma is staying faithful to his sister and trying to build a life for himself in his new world at the same time. Marchenski's desperation is understated throughout until his confusion leads to a dramatic climax that in a way solves everyone's problem to no one's satisfaction.
Julian Samuel, an untrained actor, plays a Pakistani immigrant who befriends Katya, adding a touch of warmth to her otherwise hopeless life. Their scenes together are some of the best.
Combs uses a hand-held camera to focus in tight on the characters' features and their ordinary actions, such as peeling an orange or slowly exploring another's hand or face. The approach works, mainly, helping the director shape the pace of the story to accentuate its personal qualities. The pace is slow but it doesn't drag.
Acts of Imagination has every right to be labelled "an art film," with all the positives and negatives the term implies. As a first feature film, it impresses.
Letter from Carl Henrik Svenstedt, writer, filmmaker, professor of art & technology
southernsweden.se - film, books, artwork, bergsgatan 1, SE-11223 stockholm
www.svenstedt.nu
Carl Henrik attended the Aarhus Festival of Independent Arts as a panellist on "Counterculture: Changing Times," and saw the film there.
Dear Carolyn,
I write this at once after the screening to be sure that I do not lose my impressions (but it will take some time before I get hold of my mail). It is long since I quit the profession of (theatrical) film criticism, so take the points of view of a fellow filmmaker.
Now: Acts of Imagination is an extremely complex and sophisticated film, unlike most fiction movies (with rare exceptions like "21 Grams" or "A Spotless Mind" recently). It is based on a manuscript so charged that it would make a tight theatre piece - which places quite a burden on both actors and cinematographer to "cover" the text. In movies you get used to 2-camera exchanges in those cases. But the actors are good enough, and Hayes is exceptional.
It is a film made by a documentarist, and you can see that by the way you relate timing and picture flow to "real-time" sequences in ordinary life: how long time it takes to sip a coffee, to push a swing, etc. Movie storytellers do not give a damn about the real-reality relation of their picture. They create reality. Timing, continuity, flow, is EXCLUSIVELY related to - and driven by - the narration/emotional needs and forces (as they see them fit).
Same with light: you are looking for a realistic light setting; fiction directors and cameramen look for what you might call "created" or "impressional" realism: the mood of the image would be the most important truth-setting factor.
We documentary and truth-seeking people often blend these things, also in literature, i.e. in biographical works where the writer trust the document so much that he loses the impact of telling stories. (I personally think that most autobiographies could use a little lying :-)
As for the content, the plot, the relational aspects of the story and its personalities - I think you managed that like an old master. The film hurts because it hits some very sore point in our emigrant hearts! And in this vulnerable sister/brother soul of ours as well.
I am sure that the film will be well received by the critics here in Europe. It will be harder to find a big audience for this unusual kind of cinematographic storytelling. My advise would be that for a classic independent movie: to build your audience head by head, and soul by soul - and to let us Europeans get to know about it through frequent festival participations. This is a very complex continent, and we have all lived through that story...
Peace & Love, like we used to say in the Sixties!
Carl Henrik
Radio review by Teresa Stolarskyj, interviewed by Paulette Demchuk MacQuarrie for Nash Holos (Ukrainian radio)
Radio interview (audio .mp3 file, opens in new window)
Review by Marguerite Pigott of the Toronto International Film Festival
A fundamental mystery overshadows the childhood memories of Katya (Stephanie Hayes) and Slawko (Billy Marchenski). Their parents were murdered in Ukraine and the details remain elusive. Now a young woman, Katya's consciousness is split between past and present, Ukraine and Canada, as she relives her mother's final days to uncover the truth. This is an inventive and ambitious feature film debut.
Katya and Slawko have only each other. He sees her as fragile and protects her from daily life in the industrial end of Vancouver. Seeing herself in harsher terms, Katya describes herself as a mutant. Almost involuntarily, she slips into the character of her mother, living out imagined scenes from her mother's past and drawing those around her into her fantasy. Katya envisages her final meetings with the mysterious Petrov (Volodymyr Serdyuk), who shared her parents' political activism in Ukraine and who may have been responsible for their deaths. Her obsession with her parents' story pulls Slawko towards a past he only wants to forget. Buckling under pressure to make ends meet and confronted with his girlfriend's desire that he move in with her, Slawko and Katya must find a place - and a time - to be together.
Writer Michael Springate has crafted a thematically rich and complex narrative. The central question of the film - is one's history an act of imagination? - is taken out of a theoretical realm and actively explored by the characters. Combs's unvarnished and raw approach to the characters and their world results in an exceptional intimacy. As Katya, Hayes is a discovery. Her performance is unadorned, truthful and compelling; her beautiful simplicity and depth command our attention.
Combs teases apart the stories her characters tell themselves and examines how our relationship to our history informs who we become. Acts of Imagination delicately uncovers the truth within the lie, and leaves us with a gratifyingly authentic piece of filmmaking.
Review by Anrij Makuch of 
, The New Pathway
The Canadian feature film Acts of Imagination, by first-time feature film director Carolyn Combs, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall. Andrij Makuch, who took in its second screening on September 15, sends this report.
Katya and Jaroslaw (Slawko) are relatively recent Ukrainian immigrants living in Vancouver's east end. The area is gritty, but slowly gentrifying. When the warehouse in which Slawko works is sold for a condo development, he loses his job. The timing is bad because the rent is due and Slawko's relationship with his girlfriend, Seuchong, a Korean-Canadian single-mom, has begun to move into a more serious phase.
Katya, meanwhile, is plagued by the memories of the loss of her "nationalist" parents. Her father simply disappeared, and then her mother seems to have died violently or accidentally not long thereafter. The lack of resolution has crippled Katya emotionally and she plays out the drama of their disappearance in imagined conversations in which she takes on her mother's persona. In these conversations, a mysterious family friend, Petro, keeps telling her to "kill the traitor."
Vancouver's Fraser River reminds Katya of the "Dnieper" in her native Kyiv and she spends time by the river. There, she meets and takes up with an older Pakistani-British immigrant, Aashir, in a manner that ensures the film will not be shown at any ridna shkola in the near future (raciness, not race, being the issue). She later gives Aashir a treasured family icon, which Slawko had hoped to sell to make ends meet. Aashir's desire to pay for it leads to a misunderstanding that introduces the film's dramatic climax.
Acts of Imagination is a respectably well-done production. Though, like most Canadian films, it is not likely to be noticed by most of the world. One thing that does set it apart is that it is the first Canadian feature film in a very long time to have Ukrainian protagonists, rendering it of some interest to a Ukrainian-Canadian audience. This is all the more true since the "Ukrainian" aspect of the leads' lives is significant: these are not incidental Ukrainians.
The Ukrainian angle very much seems to be rooted with the scriptwriter, Michael Springate. In 1992, he travelled to Ukraine to arrange a performance by an Odesa-based troupe to the Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg. That trip, along with his close friendship with an immigrant from Ukraine, seems to have sowed the seeds of this project.
Springate weaves Ukrainian politics and history into the script. A mention of the Famine of 1932 to 1933 is woven in seamlessly when Katya explains that her grandmother, facing starvation and knowing that she is going to die, purchased the treasured icon by exchanging her last bits of food so that she could at least have some solace in her remaining days.
Notwithstanding its generally sympathetic treatment of the Ukrainian immigrant experience, the film has some difficulties in dealing with this subject. The most obvious is the matter of accents. Katya's is quite credible: smooth, not forced. The role is played by Stephanie Hayes, a native of Sweden who studied at Simon Fraser University. She also does gamely well when uttering a few lines in Ukrainian. On the other hand, Vancouver-based Billy Marchewski, as Jaroslaw, speaks jarringly, with no discernable accent. Marchewski is a second-generation Ukrainian–his biological mother is Ukrainian and his adoptive father is Ukrainian too, but his father spoke no Ukrainian at home. In a scene with Seuchong in which Jaroslaw discusses a road trip to Las Vegas, he lapses into language no immigrant is likely to speak (using expression such as "Sweet baby Jesus," with a strong inflection).
Oddly, the film portrays the protagonists as decidedly working-class folk. Katya has a part-time job in a copy shop, while Slawko is a common labourer. When he asks Seuchong whether she can get him a civil-service job, like the one she has, he says nothing of advanced education qualifications to plead his case. This is out of the reality of most immigrants coming to Canada from Ukraine today. While they may end up working in low-end jobs for a certain period, they tend to be highly qualified and well educated. The film hits a wrong note by not bringing this up at least nominally.
All the same, the "old-country" aspect is a real factor in Acts of Imagination. The film incorporates Ukrainian music and themes, and is an interesting and legitimate effort that is worth checking out.
Review by Jason Whyte of efilmcritic.com
Acts of Imagination (3.5/5) – With all of the cheaply made, poorly focused films to come out of Canadian cinema these days, it is a welcome relief to see a character study that feels like a worthy addition to indie-cinema that uses its background as a character. "Acts of Imagination" is about two Ukranian siblings who move to Vancouver with a troubled past and have a problem with connecting with anyone outside of it. Director Carolyn Combs succeeds with three-dimensional characters, strong writing and a skilled direction involving tight lenses, hand-held photography and a real genuine feel for the rainy climate of the city.
Review by Kevin Potvin of the Vancouver Republic
Acts of Imagination by East Vancouver Director Carolyn Combs was shot around Commercial Drive and New Westminster (employing all-local actors and local technicians). It's a contemplative and moody film, filled with rain and darkness in both environment and inner life. The film couldn't look and sound more like Vancouver.
Katya and Jaroslav are brother and sister who survived their freedom-fighter parent's deaths in pre-Orange Revolution Ukraine, before immigrating to Canada. The Fraser River, "a working river" stands in for the Danube of Katya's native Kiev (as does Burrard Inlet off New Brighton Park, as a river in Korea, for Jaroslav's relatively chirpy immigrant girlfriend).
Everything in this film, from the flower blossom struck by rain to the streaked window looking down on the grim East Side alley, to the Pakistani man Katya has an affair with, is a Wim Wenders-like metaphor for something else. There is scarcely a bridge between the two worlds, the one left behind, rich with memories and dangers, the other, the present, in the overcast and perennially dripping city. The only object that does pass through the porthole, a tiny antique religious painting, is abandoned for rent money.
The immigrant experience in Canada is a hallow charade, but its one, Ukrainian immigrant Combs implies by the end of her film, that is serviceable. It's empty still and quiet here, she seems to say, which is hardly a new thing to hear about Canada, and the features here are mere imitations of those "back home," but the peace, the safety, the chance to start new, and even the imitations, are all good enough, given the alternative.
New history is already being written in fits and starts here, and new roots are, in another kind of hard scrabble soil, shooting down. Even the harshest memories of Communist Russia-dominated Ukraine, and the cost it exacted on Katya and Jaroslav's family, fade under the constant rain and the dull light, fades into a mix with everyone else's memories.
It's a beautiful contemplation, this film, more for what it leaves you with than for what it gives you while watching it. It plays as part of the Vancouver Film Festival on October 2nd at Granville 7 at 7 pm and October 12th at 11 am.
From an article on Vancouver films going to TIFF by Glen Schaefer of the Vancouver Province
A newcomer to the competition is first-time director Carolyn Combs, who taught theatre and made documentaries before making the intimate drama Acts of Imagination, from a screenplay by her husband Michael Springate, a drama instructor at Simon Fraser University. The movie stars newcomers Stephanie Hayes and Billy Marchenski as a brother and sister, Ukrainian immigrants getting over a traumatic past in their new Vancouver home. Lyrically shot and with a mature economy to the writing, the movie is heading to Toronto without a distributor, and is the come-from-nowhere surprise in this crowd.
Film Description, The Vancouver International Film Festival, program
Cinematically vibrant, making beautiful use of sensual close-ups and hand-held camera, this accomplished first feature by Carolyn Coombs recalls the West Coast "New Wave" in the freedom and expressive quality of its cinematography and editing. Set in a mixed industrial and residential landscape on the bank of the Fraser river, this is the engaging drama of a young Ukranian woman, Katya (Stephanie Hayes), whose memories of the past threaten to take control of the present. The memories she is obsessed with are in fact not her own, but those she imagines for her mother who disappeared in the Ukraine. While others see Katya talking to herself, she sees herself as her mother in an encounter with a man who wants her to kill a traitor.
When Katya's brother Jaroslaw (Billy Marchenski) loses his job--the building he works in is now worth more as condos than a warehouse--the siblings find themselves short on rent. Katya turns for help to Aashir, an older man originally from Pakistan who shares her favourite spot at the river bank. Misunderstandings follow with tragic results, but Katya learns to face the past as herself and to open up to someone else's imagination. Hayes gives a strong performance finding the balance between Katya's vulnerability and hard edge, and the charismatic Marchenski gives life to an equally vulnerable dreamer.
Review by S. James Wegg of the Hamilton View
In Acts of Imagination, director Carolyn Combs and screenwriter Michael Springate have teamed up to produce a film that invigorates, infuriates and fascinates. Its many layers, like the proverbial onion, are sometimes blurred by some too on–the– nose dialogue ("I spend more than I have for freedom, someone has to do it.") and political preachiness ("At least three million, perhaps eight million (Ukrainians) died, but the outside world
didn't care."). Yet it has a visual and structural strength that overcome the polemic lines and draw us into a sibling relationship that eventually descends into a fine, if murky madness as it asks more questions than can possibly be answered. The "acts" are wondrously separated by the peeling away of the morning orange and the cutting of vegetables for the evening repast. Steven Deneault brings those moments to the screen with the same love and thoughtful pacing of the Vancouver setting that may leave some viewers squirming then heading for an exit while others revel in languid moments that surround the newcomers as they settle into their New World and try to purge the old. The effective score (Randy Raine–Reusch and Ari Snyder) is at one with the tone, yet the strongest music is more felt than heard in a dance sequence that, quite literally, throws the characters together.
As Katya, Stephanie Hayes largely succeeds in her portrayal of a woman whose parents disappeared unnaturally from her life. Her peasant–like demeanour, aided and abetted by fishnet stockings and red leather boots, confirms her lack of assimilation into Canadian society. Magnificent is the early on reflection of her saddest–woman– in–the–world countenance that brings home character with more weight and conviction than 40 pages of dialogue could. More of this approach would quickly lift this production into great rather than merely good. In this world where virtually no one is from "here" it seems entirely appropriate that Katya's sudden love interest should be a fatherly Pakistani sometime–writer, Aashir. Julian Samuel's wooden delivery is easily forgiven by a visage that mirrors lust, love and languish at will. Sadly, Katya's remorse at having slept with him ("You fucked me, what more do you want?") serves more to soil them both instead of digging a little deeper into the roots of her outrage of having sex with someone, to quote another cliché, "old enough to be her father." Imagine a "boudoir" mirror shot achieving that post–act reflection.
In an echo of Michael Pitt in Bertolucci's The Dreamers, Billy Marchenski brings a compelling laissez faire tone to his part as Katya's younger brother Jaroslaw. "Jerry," as, incongruously he's referred to by his Korean lover, Seuchong (smartly rendered by Maki Nagisa) drowns his personal and financial sorrows with unending shots of vodka. In the near The Gift of the Magi sequence where both brother and sister have, simultaneously and independently, solved their immediate cash–flow problem, Jaroslaw celebrates his "victory" with drink then manages to lose his grip and staggers in his parents' horrific footsteps.
Not a film for escapists, the sound of birds, lingering shots of all manner of foliage and the sweet innocence of playing on swings lift the family secrets conceit far beyond the west coast to serve as a catalyst for any family unit that has known the depths of unfathomable despair.
Here's to the next Combs/Springate installment, perhaps with more show than tell. V
Review by Jessica Smith of the University of Victoria's Independent Newspaper, The Martlet
History books tell slanted half-truths. Memories can be corrupted or made of lies and slander, and they die with the bodies they belong to—so maybe the truest history is an act of imagination.
This idea is the credo of Katya, a Ukrainian immigrant to Vancouver, in Acts of Imagination.
She can't get the fantasies of the people she believes were involved in the deaths of her parents out of her mind.
She talks to them more than she talks to anyone in Canada and recreates the circumstances of her mother's murder.
The spectre that haunts her brother is poverty. Feeling tied down by obligation to his unstable sister and having lost his job puts pressure on his relationship with his new girlfriend.
The acting is professional and powerful. The brother and sister have a chemistry that makes it hard to tell to tell at first if they're sleeping together or if they're siblings.
All four main actors keep up a high level of emotional intensity throughout the film but never seem to be aware that they're acting—every breakdown and every giggle seems authentic.
Domestic scenes and Vancouver's Fraser River are captured beautifully in long shots that reward the viewers' patience.
The intensity of the film, and its darkness and hopelessness, will make it unappealing to anyone who wants to be entertained. Acts of Imagination is thoroughly depressing and so realistically dismal that those feelings can be hard to shake off when the film is over.
